Supply Chain Network

Supply Chain Network means a series of activities aimed at providing products and or services to the final customer. Based on this, all activities relevant to procurement of raw material, goods and converting them from procurement of raw materials to deliver the finished product ready to use by end user, as well as related financial and information flows are included in this field. Thus, suppliers of materials and parts, manufacturers, distributers, wholesalers, retailers and even end users are also elements and segments of every Supply Chain Network.
The structure of supply chain is made up of a wide network to deliver the product and services from raw materials to end users through an engineered information flow, physical flow and financial flow. Financial and information flows are on the reveres side of physical flow and moves from the end of the chain to its beginning.
Supply Chain Network
A supply chain comprises of a network of retailers, distributors, transport companies, storage facilities and suppliers who are involved in production, deliver and sale of product or services to customers. This also includes the return of product from customer to producer.
The concept of Material Management was coined in the past to manage and coordinate the flow of materials among different sections of a company that are inter-related like the rings of a chain. Further development in this field was coining of a new concept called Logistics, which covered new activities comprising sale prediction, transport planning and planning for the process of delivering goods. Today, the concept of Supply Chain Management covers not only planning of material and inter-organization relocation but also covers a wider range of the whole supply chain link from main producer of raw material to deliver finished product to final customers or consumers.
Various rings of a supply chain are as follows:
Supplier, Producer, Storage Facilities, Distributor, Transportation (transportation modes, transportation costs, carrier type), Retailer, Customer, Service Provider, Reverse Logistics (Customer Returns, Product Recalls, Repair & Overhaul, Remanufacturing, Recycling, Waste Management, Hazardous Waste)